Rough Seas
by dukeminiman
Summary: This story takes place in the pokemon world during the Golden Age of Piracy and follows a young captain as he forms and leads his crew. Most characters will be OCs but a few will be connected to characters that you might recognize.
1. Introduction

Introduction

It is the late seventeenth century, a time that has become known as the Golden Age of Piracy. The pokemon world that we all know has come a long way since then and is almost unrecognizable, the regions are each rules by different governing bodies that always sit on the brink of war. The oceans of the world are teeming with two kinds of fortune seekers, the maritime merchants who obtain their wealth legally, and the pirates who don't. This story follows story of a boy whose dream is to become a pirate, not to earn wealth, but to simply break the monotony of his life. On that note it is about time this boy woke up.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

A Rude Awakening

-creak-

Somewhere inside of a crate a boy woke up.

"_I just had the weirdest dream"_, thought the boy.

-creak-

"_What was that?",_ he thought groggily.

The creaking gradually grew closer to the boy as he began to regain his senses from the gray abyss of sleep.

"_Crap, the crew must be checking the crates!"_

The creaking continued to grow closer as the boy reacquainted himself with the cramped wooden container that he had called his home for the last several weeks. A single light source shining through a small hole in the planks that made up the crate illuminated his temporary home. The box had been filled with lure balls but he had taken most of them out in order to make room for himself and now only a few handfuls remained. The remainder of his food supplies sat in one corner, which reminded him that he had not eaten for what seemed like at least a day or two, after coming to this realization his stomach growled. The boy crawled over to the peep hole and began looking through in order to catch a glimpse of who or what he might be up against. The boy could make out two distinct silhouettes, one appeared to be a large burly man, and the other looked like he might juggle geodudes in his spare time. The boy made the safe assumption that both of them were not people that he would not want to mess with. The boy moved to the loose plank that he had used to enter and prepared to leave, at the last second he grabbed a few of the lure balls almost as an afterthought, and when he had stuffed them in his pocket he left the crate. While staying behind the row of crates that separated him and the two sailors, he began creeping past him when their voices began becoming audible.

"-and another thing I still can't figure out why the captain needs to use poliwags as bait," said the sailor that the boy decided to name burly.

"I know," said the sailor that the boy decided to name the juggler, "it doesn't help that we can't even remember which crate we put it in."

_"So they weren't looking for me after all,"_ thought the boy with relief,_" that means I only have to evade them until they find a poliwag."_

The boy began to move towards the crates that the sailors had already checked, but in order to do so he had to actually pass the sailors. The boy was almost level with the sailors when one of them exclaimed.

"There got you!" exclaimed the juggler.

The boy froze. _"Arceus! They must have seen me!"_ the boy thought.

"Finally! I thought we would be looking for this poliwag forever!" said burly with a happy note in his voice," the Captain will be so happy!"

The boy sneaked a peek through the space between two crates, what he saw was a sad sight. Burly was holding the poliwag upside down by its tail with an almost malicious smile and the poliwag had the saddest look in its eyes as though it knew that it was about to have a giant hook driven through its body until some predatory fish pokemon decided to put it out of its misery.

"_Man I wish I could do something,"_ thought the boy, "_but even if I managed to save the poliwag I would still be stuck on this ship until it docked at a port and the sailors would definitely find me by then."_

"Don't you think it's a weird time to be fishing though? I mean we've already arrived in Slateport," said the juggler," you would think he would have better luck on the open ocean."

"_Well that's convenient," _thought the boy as the sailors continued their conversation.

"You know how the Captain is, he likes to catch things in calmer waters because he couldn't catch a big fish to save his life," said burly.

"It's probably the bait he uses, I mean poliwag are fresh water pokemon," said the juggler.

"Speaking of which, I would not wanna be this little guy," said burly." the way he puts them on the hook is awful, I mean why does he shove the hook through their stomach and just let them bleed out? It seems kind of unnecessary."

Hearing this, the poliwag began fighting against its captors with renewed vigor.

"It's because it makes the bait squirm more and the blood attracts all kinds of big fishies," said the juggler.

After hearing this, the poliwag began to cry while it continued to ineffectively struggle.

"_That's it I'm gonna help that poliwag,"_ thought the boy, _"now I just have to figure how I'm going to do that."_

The boy then noticed that some of the stacks of crates looked pretty unstable. The boy gained a malicious glint in his eye and a mischievous grin as he formed a plan. The boy crept past the sailors who had stopped walking while they talked and waited behind an unstable heavy looking pile of cargo and waited until the sailors were parallel with him, after that all it took was a small shove and both sailors ended up pinned to the ground by about four hundred pounds of various objects. Luckily the poliwag was untouched by the heavy crates except for the fact that its tail was stuck under some kind of heavy iron chest, as the poliwag tried to free itself, the boy tried to lift the heavy chest but it would not budge even an inch let alone enough space for a poliwag's flat tail. The boy stopped trying to lift the chest and began to think of another way to rescue the poliwag. Suddenly the glint returned to his eyes as a plan began to form in his mind.

"Ok poliwag I have a way to get you out of there but for it to work I have to catch with this," he pulled out a lure ball, "is that fine with you?"

The poliwag earnestly nodded that yes it did not mind be captured, which is no small wonder because if one looked at it from the poliwag's perspective it could either join this strange boy, or it could continue to have his tail crushed as it awaited what would surely be a slow, painful death on the end of a hook.

"Well here goes," said the boy as he pressed the lure ball against the poliwag's stomach. The poliwag swirled into the ball in a flash of light and the iron chest fell the last few millimeters onto the ground with a solid thump.

"_Well now that that's over I just need to find a way off of this ship,"_ the boy thought, and with that he left the ship's cargo hold and walked onto the main deck.

The boy squinted after seeing the sun for the first time in weeks, and after he regained his sense of sight he began to quickly take in his surroundings. He was on the main deck of a trading vessel which currently docked in front of a city which according to the juggler must be Slateport. The boy was just about to try and figure out how to leave the ship when a sailor that must have spotted him suddenly exclaimed.

"Stowaway!"

"_Ok well this doesn't change anything, all this means is that I have to think of a way off of this ship a little bit quicker."_

The boy quickly scanned the deck for a way to leave as several crew members began walking towards him menacingly. In most cases fate is not kind, however there is the rare case when whatever divine being that guides the universe decides that he is having a good day and that he wants to share the love, luckily for the boy this was one of those cases as conveniently the only side that was not blocked by sailors was also the side closest to the harbor.

"_Here goes nothing," _thought the boy as he began sprinting to the edge of the deck and jumped into the water.

"_Wait a second," _thought the boy with a panic, "_I can't swim!" _ The momentum of the boy's fall had already driven him almost eight feet underwater and he only continued to sink further into the sea. Mere seconds before he blacked he suddenly had an epiphany.

"_Wait a second maybe the poliwag can help!" _

He dug into his pocket and pulled out the lure ball and released the poliwag, it was all he could do to indicate to the poliwag that he needed to get to land before he lost consciousness.

The boy awoke and the first thought that he had was _"I thought drowning would be a lot less pleasant." _After having this thought he felt an immense pain in his chest and he began to cough up seawater.

"_Wait…. dead people don't cough…. or feel so much pain." _

Using this thought as motivation he opened his eyes and groaned, as he slowly and painfully began to sit up and take in his surroundings. It appeared to be the middle of the night and he was in the middle of an empty beach. The boy then noticed that a poliwag, no his poliwag was sitting a few inches away, watching him.

"Well I guess this makes us even," said the boy, "Do you still want to stay with me?"

The poliwag nodded.

"Well then we are going to have to get to know each other, I'll ask you some questions and then I can tell you a little bit about myself. How does that sound?"

The poliwag nodded.

"You sure like nodding don't you?"

The poliwag nodded.

"Ok then, moving on. So are you a boy or a girl?" The boy felt an odd sense of nostalgia as he asked this question but he brushed it off as a side effect of nearly drowning. "Lemme guess are you a boy?"

The poliwag head-butted him in the stomach, causing him to cough up even more water. When he had finished sputtering he decided that he was wrong.

"Ok you're definitely a girl and it turns out that you can do more than nod, both of which are good. Hmmm the next thing that we need to do is give you a name. How about… Flop?"

This suggestion resulted in a painful head-butt to his already sore stomach.

"No you're right that makes you sound like a magikarp. How about Blue?"

This suggestion also resulted in a head-butt to the stomach, at this rate he was going to end up with some bruises.

"Ow! That crosses that name off the drawing board."

The next several minutes passed like this and the boy's stomach was beginning to hurt quite a bit when suddenly gained a malicious glint in his eye. The poliwag tilted her head in a questioning manner because her new owner's face had begun to look quite frightening.

"I've got it! How about Spiral? You know because of the spiral on your chest."

The boy received another head-butt from the poliwag if this kept up the boy decided he would invest in some kind of stomach padding.

"Dang it! I was sure that one was good! Hmmm what if we shorten it to Spi?"

The boy prepared himself for another head-butt, as the poliwag thought for a moment before enthusiastically nodding her head. The boy relaxed in relief and said, "Well now that we've given you a name I suppose I should tell you mine. My name is Alex and it's a pleasure to meet you."

-Author's notes-

This chapter took a while to write probably because it's the first chapter of the story. I always think that the hardest part of writing anything is the beginning and the end so the rest of this should be a lot easier to write. Some people that read this might think "Gee Mr. Author it sure was annoying to read "the boy does this" and "the boy thinks that". Why couldn't you have just told us his name from the start?" Well dear hypothetical person to answer your question I have to start by saying that as annoying as it was for you to read it was much more annoying to write so keep that in mind, and secondly who would he have told his name to? The only real person/pokemon he has really talked to in this chapter is Spi and they were too busy trying to leave the ship to exchange/create names. On a sort of related note Spi's name is pronounced Spee. This concludes the first chapter of Rough Seas! I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it!


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

A New Face

-Reviews-

Hello Mr. Author here I just thought I would say that I will now be doing my best to respond to any reviews or questions you guys might have.

To gallantmon7196, thanks for being my first subscriber and I hope this story will live up to your expectations.

To dragons790, I also noticed the lack of pirate based pokemon stories and so I decided to write one! I also have been wanting to test my ability to write and I decided this would be fun as well as challenging. Now to the fun part of this reply, answering your questions. I never explicitly stated that there was only one poliwag but I suppose if there was only one it would be because the ship had just docked after a fairly long trip. And while Alex did push around 400 lbs. of cargo onto the sailors, he did not intend to kill them, also you should find out in this chapter that he has somewhat questionable morals. Thanks for bringing up a very valid point! To be honest answering questions about the chapters is just as fun as writing them.

Alex was too tired to move so he spent the rest of the night sleeping on the beach, and when he awoke the next morning his mind was filled with thoughts of only one thing, food. His stomach growled like a hungry Snorlax as he realized he had not eaten for three days.

"Man I'm hungry," Alex said to Spi, "I guess I just didn't realize it yesterday because everything happened so fast. Well I guess the only thing to do is go into Slateport and find some food."

Spi nodded as her stomach growled although hers sounded more like a Munchlax than a Snorlax.

"I guess you must be hungry too, well let's go find some food!"

Spi nodded her agreement as the pair set off in search of sustenance. The pair became aware of the sound of a crowd that gradually increased as they neared the city. As Alex looked around, he took in the sights of the city while at the same time looking for something that would quell his angry stomach. As he wandered around he overheard two women talking and decided to listen in, as he was quickly growing bored of just walking around.

"I just feel _so _blessed to live in a town with such a world famous market," said a lady in a rather large yellow hat.

"I know right!" said a lady. A different lady with an equally large and blue hat, "And the local fruit stand even has Tropius fruit! It isn't even in season at this time of year!"

"Oh yes that fruit is simply to die for," said the yellow hat wearing woman, "In fact if I was about to die of starvation there is nothing I would rather eat!"

Alex quickly caught up to the women to ask for directions to the market and after receiving them he set out for the market. When he arrived he could not believe that he had missed it, the market was a massive open area with many colorful stalls filled with items, many of which Alex had never seen in his life. Finally after walking around and examining the many well stocked stalls Alex finally found what he was looking for, the fruit stand. It was a blue and white striped stand and it was covered with basket upon basket of fruit. At the sight of all of this food, Alex's stomach began to growl like an Arcanine which reminded him of his purpose here. He began to walk up to the stall when he remembered one very important fact.

"_I don't have any money!"_

At this realization Alex began to form a plan, however for the first time in Alex's life no plan came, and the familiar glint in his eye never appeared, it seemed as though he was too hungry to come up with a plan. Every time he tried to concentrate and the details began to form, his stomach would decide that it wanted to impersonate a Mightyena and he would lose his focus. So the young boy decided that he would do something that he had never done, he would do something risky without making a plan. Now Alex could not have known this, but as it turned out the Slateport market was fed up with thieves, so they had recently received a shipment of Watchogs to enterprising thieves in the act. And because Alex did not know this, he did not realize that two pairs of eyes were following his every move as he walked away from the stand without the stall owner noticing his theft. He thought he had gotten away with his little breadwinning or this case fruit-winning act. He thought wrong. And because of this when Alex was stopped from leaving the market by a pair of angry Watchogs he was quite surprised, but not quite as surprised as he was when the market guards showed up to take him into custody. As the guards surrounded him the only thing Alex could do was to recall Spi to prevent her from being hurt, after doing this he held up his hands in surrender.

After he had all of his pokeballs confiscated, he spent a few minutes being dragged around with his hands cuffed behind his back he was finally taken into the building that housed criminals until they could be taken to the main jailhouse in the area. Alex was taken down a staircase that led under the main floor and into a hallway full of cells, all of which appeared to be empty. He was thrown into a dark cell with no furnishings except the iron bars that prevented any escape attempts. Before the guards threw Alex into the cell they uncuffed him, for which he was very grateful because he had lost the feelings in his hands several minutes ago. As his eyes became adjusted to the darkness he noticed a decidedly human like figure staring at him. Actually as Alex continued to study his cellmate he noticed the figure was indeed human. He was a tall and lanky boy with a few pieces of blond hair sticking out from a blue bandana with an anchor pattern that was tied around his head, he wearing a white vest and red shorts.

"Sup," said Alex's new cellmate, "what are you in here for?"

"I uh… tried to rob a fruit stand….."

"Seriously!? You got caught trying to rob a fruit stand? That's one of the simplest criminal acts that you could ever commit!"

"How was I supposed to know that they had Watchogs guarding the stands!" said Alex defensively, "If my crime is so pathetic, then what did you do to get thrown in here?"

"Well you see….."

"Yes go on," Alex prompted.

"I started a brawl so I could steal some fruit in the chaos," said the boy quickly, "but I got so wrapped up in the fighting I forgot to steal the fruit. Or run away before the guards showed up."

After Alex had finally stopped laughing he said, "I least I remembered what I was trying to do! But anyway lemme guess you were trying to steal some Tropius fruit?"

The other boy's jaw dropped as he stammered out, "H-how did you know?"

"What a coincidence we got thrown into the same cell for trying to steal the same thing!" said Alex, "Speaking of which when are we going to be released from this cell?"

"I guess you're not from around here are you?" said the boy with a somewhat mournful note in his voice, "Thievery got to be such a large problem in Slateport that the citizens changed the punishment to a life sentence, as in you are here forever."

"Well luckily nothing lasts forever, don't worry I'll have a plan to get us out of here in no time," said Alex as his stomach roared, reminding him why he had been stealing in the first place, "On second thought I'm gonna need something to eat first."

The other boy laughed as Alex said, "You know what? We never introduced ourselves, my name is Alex."

"My name is Roy," said the boy, "it looks like we're going to be spending a lot of time together"

Not much happened after that because Alex was too hungry to talk but after the guards delivered some food of a dubious quality, the two boys got acquainted with one another.

"So what do you typically do when you're not having the time of your life in a place like this," said Alex as he gestured at their less than luxurious surroundings.

"Well I used to be a shipwright's apprentice," Roy replied, "I was good at it too. My teacher said I was the best student he ever had, minus my small tendency to get a few fights here and there. To be honest I think that fixing a bunch of fat merchants' ships all day would be quite boring but it would've paid the bills if I hadn't ended up in here.

"So basically what you're saying is that you like fighting and fixing ships?" said Alex with a somewhat creepy glint in his eye.

"Uh…. yes?" said Roy slightly creeped out by the look his new cellmate was currently giving him.

"What if you could do both?" said Alex.

Roy chuckled, "Not many customers want to be punched in the face when they take their ship in for a repair."

"No but if you were a pirate you could fight, and a pirate ship could always use some repairs."

"Are you saying that you're a pirate," said Roy with an unbelieving look on his face.

"Everyone needs a hobby," said Alex with a shrug, "so what do you say? Do you want to join my crew? I mean let's be honest if we do escape this prison you'll already be a wanted criminal."

Roy thought for a moment before saying, "Sure it's not like I have very many worthwhile prospects here anyway, "So how many other people are on your crew?"

"Just you and me," said Alex nonchalantly.

Excuse me did you just say that we are the only ones in your pirate crew!?" Roy asked incredulously.

"Pretty much," said Alex, "Which reminds me; do you know where I could find a ship? Nothing fancy mind you just something that a small crew could sail effectively.

"You don't even have a ship," said Roy with something that almost sounded like a whine, "I mean come on what kind of capt- actually I know of a ship exactly like that."

"You do? That's great!", exclaimed Alex, "Where is it and what kind of ship is it?"

"Well about a week ago the Pokemon Rangers caught a small time pirate and confiscated his ship, it's a Junk." said Roy, "Considering he was executed three days ago I don't think he will mind if we take it."

"That's grea- wait did you say it was a piece of junk?" said Alex, "I said I needed a small ship not a bad one."

"Not a piece of junk, a Junk," said Roy, "It's a type of small sailing vessel that comes from somewhere far to the East. It will be perfect because the three of us could sail it, and it's at the Stern Shipyard where I used to work. I still have the key to the shipyard or um at least the chest full of prisoner's belongings has it.

"Well that's great," said Alex, "Also did you the three of us could sail it? because like I said earlier the only people in our little pirate crew are you and me."

"Well I have a machop who's my partner in everything," said Roy, "whether it's fighting or sailing he's always got my back…. or at least he did before I got thrown in here."

"That reminds me I need to rescue Spi!" exclaimed Alex, "we've been together for such a short time I had almost forgotten about her!"

"I take it Spi is your pokemon?" Roy asked.

Alex nodded.

"Well then I guess all that's left for you to come up with an escape plan then," said Roy.

Alex's eyes glinted as he said, "Oh I wouldn't worry about that. I think I just did."

-Author's notes-

So originally this chapter would be split into two chapters with the first one ending after Roy introduced himself, but as I finished what would have been Chapter three I just felt like both chapters were a bit too short so I combined the chapters and I think it flows a bit better now. This chapter was also much easier to write b/c I already have a vague plan of where I'm taking this story, instead of improvising much of it on the spot like I did with the first chapter. Well I'm off to play The Wolf Among Us while I try to plan the rest of the next chapter. Until next time this is your (hopefully) favorite novice writer signing off.


	4. Just a Heads up

Hello two fans and other assorted readers! Sorry it's been so long since my last post, this has been due to the fact that I haven't had access to my computer recently. I finally got it back today and I was working on the third chapter when I came to the sudden realization that this book might be better as a non-pokemon based story. I might end up re-writing the story accordingly and while I think it would be good either way I want your opinion! Write a review or message me with your opinion, you never know you just might change my mind. I hope you have enjoyed the story so far and even if I do change the story I will take down this announcement and replace it with third chapter once it's finished. I've had a lot of fun writing this and I can't wait to hear/read your opinions.


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